Here's hoping that you all had a bit of a rest of the Christmas/New Year break whatever festival you may or may not have celebrated. In the Elizannie/Other Half household this is the day nominated to take down Christmas decorations or as in the post title 'undecking the halls'. This means that the dwelling will look bigger and cleaner without actually doing any cleaning so rather a good day for me.... Life is returning to the normal Saturday morning of Other Half on a demo and Elizannie listening to Ken Livingstone and David Mellor on LBC whilst ranting on the internet.
Have you made any New Year Resolutions? As I usually break the obvious ones like losing weight and taking up more exercise, I am going to sneak up on these ideas this year. But something that is not a resolution, more a way of life, is not to let any politician/observer/media commentator get away with any untrue/misleading quotes/comments/rabble rousing ideas.
Of course I do have 'New Year Wishes' which to be honest are easier to do as I am not quite so involved as in a resolution..... although I am if I carry them out, or to imitate Charles Kingsley's character* I become a Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby perhaps they are in fact harder to enact?
So here are some of my New Year Wishes:
- Newspapers, TV & Radio journalists please check your sources and only quote the true facts of any case. Do not speculate/exaggerate but present these speculations/exaggerations as 'fact'. Please question politicians more outrageous statements by asking them to verify/present proof.
- Politicians, please read the previous wish and think whether you have ever been guilty of a gross exaggeration/presentation of apparent facts which have not been verified. Have you ever dismissed a case presented by a constituent as being too unlikely/small to bother about? These are the cases that may mean the world to that person - put yourself into their place for 24 hours. Better still live with them for 24 hours. Now how do you feel?
- Coalition Government, please stop blaming the previous Government for any nasty measure you are taking now. Maybe, just possibly, over the past four years there has been something that the previous administration got wrong and needed reversing. But after four years and World economic problems can you really still need to use that excuse? Please give the electorate credit for seeing through this excuse.
- Back to the media - if a Newspaper prints a false story/article the apology should be the same size as the original. Then the Editor may think twice about being so careless in the future.
- 2014 sees 100 years from the start of World War One. By all means remember all those from all sides who lost their lives/were greviously injures/the families who never recovered from the effects. But do not let us 'celebrate' or relive those battles. War is wrong, however often we look at it. And how many of those young men who marched off in 1914 from the UK alone knew why they were going? The complex arrangement of treaties which meant that Countries were supporting their Allies really had very little meaning to the man in the street who were somehow never the less whipped up into a frenzy of patriotism that meant they enlisted 'to fight [and too many to die] for their country'.
- Please, please can we all just be nicer to one and other. Maybe this comes under the heading of 'good manners'/politeness? I just posed a question on my facebook page, wondering how others would have dealt with a 'situation' yesterday: "Still a bit annoyed over something that happened yesterday and wonder how others would have dealt with it. In a shop with Eldest Granddaughter and due to my hearing problems didn't realise someone was trying to get past me. When I did realise I apologised profusely but didn't mention my deafness, however the two women were very rude which upset Granddaughter. Should I have explained I was deaf which was why I hadn't jumped out of the way immediately as they seemed to have expected or just let it go as I usually do when I am on my own?" [Just to point out that the hearing aids that I wear, whilst great, do not help in a large and noisy shop in the sales, especially when someone is speaking to me from behind!]
Please feel free to add your own New Year Wishes in the comments section! And may I wish you all a New Year filled with Peace and Joy.
*Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby in Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies taught the water babies to act toward others as they would wish others to act toward them.
The picture above is an illustration 'Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby took Tom
in her arms'. Illustration for The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley (Ernest
Nister, c 1880) artist Arthur A Dixon.
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